Slashdot Mirror

Note that the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: 'a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods'. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes.

Could not find "Framework Convention on Climate Change" Link this time, but a year ago I could and if you Google enough you should be able to find it. Tim S

Water vapor produces a positive feedback element-- the hotter it gets, the more water vapor in the atmosphere, and the higher the water-induced greenhouse effect.

But, seriously, does that necessarily follow? One could also argue that the more water vapour in the air, the more clouds there are, which could conceivably increase the albedo.

Of course. The original comment was about the greenhouse effect-- that is, infrared absorption-- of water vapor, so that was what I was talking about. As for other feedback effects, the post you quote continued: "But it's just one of many feedback effects, positive and negative."

Since the top of clouds over 18,000 feet are almost all ice, and not water vapour, and ice has a very high reflectivity, it's at the very least arguable to say that the two effects might offset.

Yep, that's the "negative feedback effect" mentioned.

Note, however, that the negative feedback effece reduces temperature increase from the greenhouse effect, it doesn't eliminate it. (because if it eliminated it, of course, the feedback itself would be zero.)

Of course, maybe they don't; I don't profess to have any data one way or the other. I'm just saying this is the type of reasoning that drives me nuts; it could be true, it could be false, but the AGW crowd takes one side, doesn't always provide data, or ignores data that refutes their position, and calls anyone who disagrees with them a nutter.

Well, let's see, what would be the correct approach? Maybe, do a detailed physics-based computer model, and validate it with detailed measurements? That is what climate scientists do. That's pretty much their job description.

And is what the deniers don't do. And don't even try to do.

...I'm skeptical of AGW because I've read so many forecasts ("Tuvalu will be completely underwater in three years! Antarctica is melting!", etc.) when...

Again, as I said previously, the characteristic failing on that side is not bad physics, but is a tendency toward hyping worst-case scenarios. Which I find almost equally annoying. There's a cherry-picking process here, though-- the press picks up and hypes the most extreme predictions, so if there's, say, ten thousand predictions, the single one that's wacky gets amplified, and the more moderate voices get ignored. Have you actually read the IPCC report? Not the popular media reports and the biased analyses from people with opinions, but the actual documents from the IPCC? If you're talking about predictions, this is the place to start, not whatever hype-of-the-week you got from scrolling around on the internet.

It's amazing to me how many people want to throw rocks at the IPCC report and how few want to bother to actually read it. It's not the place to go for all the details (although it does have extensive bibliographies), but it's a good place to start, and written at a tutorial level.

Water vapor produces a positive feedback element-- the hotter it gets, the more water vapor in the atmosphere, and the higher the water-induced greenhouse effect.

But, seriously, does that necessarily follow? One could also argue that the more water vapour in the air, the more clouds there are, which could conceivably increase the albedo.

Of course. The original comment was about the greenhouse effect-- that is, infrared absorption-- of water vapor, so that was what I was talking about. As for other feedback effects, the post you quote continued: "But it's just one of many feedback effects, positive and negative."

Since the top of clouds over 18,000 feet are almost all ice, and not water vapour, and ice has a very high reflectivity, it's at the very least arguable to say that the two effects might offset.

Yep, that's the "negative feedback effect" mentioned.

Note, however, that the negative feedback effece reduces temperature increase from the greenhouse effect, it doesn't eliminate it. (because if it eliminated it, of course, the feedback itself would be zero.)

Of course, maybe they don't; I don't profess to have any data one way or the other. I'm just saying this is the type of reasoning that drives me nuts; it could be true, it could be false, but the AGW crowd takes one side, doesn't always provide data, or ignores data that refutes their position, and calls anyone who disagrees with them a nutter.

Well, let's see, what would be the correct approach? Maybe, do a detailed physics-based computer model, and validate it with detailed measurements? That is what climate scientists do. That's pretty much their job description.

And is what the deniers don't do. And don't even try to do.

...I'm skeptical of AGW because I've read so many forecasts ("Tuvalu will be completely underwater in three years! Antarctica is melting!", etc.) when...

Again, as I said previously, the characteristic failing on that side is not bad physics, but is a tendency toward hyping worst-case scenarios. Which I find almost equally annoying. There's a cherry-picking process here, though-- the press picks up and hypes the most extreme predictions, so if there's, say, ten thousand predictions, the single one that's wacky gets amplified, and the more moderate voices get ignored. Have you actually read the IPCC report? Not the popular media reports and the biased analyses from people with opinions, but the actual documents from the IPCC? If you're talking about predictions, this is the place to start, not whatever hype-of-the-week you got from scrolling around on the internet.

It's amazing to me how many people want to throw rocks at the IPCC report and how few want to bother to actually read it. It's not the place to go for all the details (although it does have extensive bibliographies), but it's a good place to start, and written at a tutorial level.

I'd personally like to see an IPCCC-like document outlining proposed best practices, which currently available scientific evidence suggests would, if followed, have some desirable outcome or prevent some undesirable outcome.

You could start with the IPCC Working Group 3 assessment report.

Of course the IPCC says that humans are the cause, it is their job to say that:

Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, ...

The IPCC's job is to study human-induced climate change, so their jobs depend upon finding human-induced climate change.

Ok, so its bad if we selectively kill people but we should encourage conditions that speed up evolution despite the fact that it may kill us all. I seriously do not understand how that's better. Why not maximize our chances of living for a long time in current conditions? If you really want people to evolve faster just release some top level predators into the neighborhood.

The CO2 myth is killing people now when hospitals in Africa don't have enough electricity to run both their medical refrigerators and lights at the same time because we're trying to keep them from using any energy source that releases CO2 despite the fact that they have abundant resources to do so.

You're still basing your argument on 2 flawed assumptions:

1. We can maintain a static climate. There has never been a static climate. We can't create it either. If we could, we'd probably already be terraforming Mars.
2. Human activity is solely or mostly what is driving the change. Everyone keeps blaming CO2, but the science and data clearly show that is not the case.

If you have a plan that will clearly stop all change in the climate, then you should submit it to the Nobel committee. They would certainly have a big check waiting for you.

Is this http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/climate-change-water-en.pdf really pseudoscience? I mean really?

Well, that paper is really only discussing the potential impact on water. It still doesn't offer anything to support the CO2 myth. But, I would consider that paper as science with some politicised embellishment. If you check the list of contributors, you'll find that not all of them are scientists. Quite a few are political people with a political agenda.

Still, looking at the scientific points doesn't seem to indicate anything particularly alarming or unexpected for someone understanding the natural chaos inherent in all natural systems. The paper makes a great point that I continue to argue:

Current water management practices may not be robust enough to cope with the impacts of climate change on water supply reliability, flood risk, health, agriculture, energy and aquatic ecosystems. In many locations, water management cannot satisfactorily cope even with current climate variability, so that large flood and drought damages occur. As a first step, improved incorporation of information about current climate variability into water-related management would assist adaptation to longer-term climate change impacts. Climatic and non-climatic factors, such as growth of population and damage potential, would exacerbate problems in the future (very high confidence). [3.3]

Our real problem isn't the change. It's that we haven't learned to be adaptable. Lightening our requirements from our environment through efficiency is what we have to do in order to be able to adapt. We need to be able to recycle our water. We need to require less energy.

We're not really arguing much on the path that we should take here. We're arguing on the motivation. And, we're not even arguing so much on that. You say if we don't change to be more efficient we won't be able to survive. I totally agree. The only difference of opinion is about what we're trying to accomplish in terms of priority. You're arguing that we need to cut CO2 so that we don't change the climate. The energy efficiency is a secondary benefit. I'm stating that the CO2 argument is completely off base and inconsistent with the evidence. I think we should become efficient because it allows us to adapt to the inevitable change that is coming, both here on Earth and for our eventual move into space. I don't care if CO2 is reduced. If we move in the directions that I would like to see us move, it would be. I just don't believe that the change in CO2 output by humanity would stop the climate change. And, ac

Ok, so its bad if we selectively kill people but we should encourage conditions that speed up evolution despite the fact that it may kill us all. I seriously do not understand how that's better. Why not maximize our chances of living for a long time in current conditions? If you really want people to evolve faster just release some top level predators into the neighborhood.

Is this http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/climate-change-water-en.pdf really pseudoscience? I mean really? If so is economics a science in your opinion?

I recommend reading the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, then. You'll find lots of fascinating facts in there.

Just to be clear the second list is made up from individuals while the first only contains scientific organizations, it excludes universities and individuals, including them would make the list unmanageably large. I don't know of a single reputable scientific organisation or university that is seriously at odds with "the consensus", certainly none appear in the list I offered although some of the individuals do hold respectable positions. An interesting excersice is to cross-check the claims of the individual skeptic with the organisations they work for.

As to your questions both have been around for many years and have been thouroughly debunked, but I will have a go. The first one about CO2 levels rising after the ice melts in an ice age is true but the claim that it is evidence against AGW is false. The regularly reccuring ice ages are caused by Earth's orbit (solar forcing), as the ice melts so does the permafrost. The melting permafrost relaeses methane which rapidly breaks down into CO2. Therefore CO2 goes up (feeds back) and ADDS to the warming caused by the shift in orbit. In otherwords CO2 is normally a feedback and that feedback mechanisim will compound the warming from our emmissions (human forcing). None of this refutes the physics that says CO2 is a GHG, nor does it refute the temprature rise expected from increased CO2. What it does tell us is that nature will add to our CO2 spike as the permafrost melts because of our CO2 spike. Personally I think the last sentance is the reason psudeo-skeptics continue to push this particular red-herring in the media.

The medieval warm period and the little icse age are different events and are the favorite fodder of media outlets such as the WSJ, they were real questions at one time and are much harder to debunk, so other than saying the conclusions are from proxy records I will just point to the RC links.

As for accuracy of the models, they have error bars but have a skim though the IPCC reports particlularly the SPM. Being a computer scientists my favorite model link is this movie of a single simulated year from Japan's Earth simulator.

"if you can explain these issues convincingly why do you let the media get away with not covering the counter argument?"

Good question, it's not from lack of trying by those involved and coverage by the media is usually a bit better outside the US (eg:BBC). The two questions you asked are not easy to understand for many people, maybe a better question is why do some people in the skeptics list get so much repeated media attention for their red-herrings and esoteric but misinformed details, despite both points being thouroughly debunked time and again? For instance why do we currently keep hearing about how cold it is the last couple of years when the fact is the hottest 10yrs on record (global average) have all occured in the last 12yrs? Why are the opinion columns (eg: WSJ) full of people who deny the Arctic sea ice is dissapearing when half of it's area and most of it's volume has already gone in just under half my lifetime? Why does the media constantly focus on rising oceans and hurricanes when (IMHO) the major threat from AGW is to agriculture and marine stocks?

I have been refering to the consensus in ambiguious terms above, however when a climatologists refers to "the consensus" they are usually referring to the falsifyable (and IMHO conservative) assertions in the IPCC reports. For seven years now many media outlets have failed to pick that up as

CO2 *DOUBLED* thanks to man over last hundred years.

Actually, the "alarmist's" favorite scientific consensus, the IPCC, states that "A wide range of direct and indirect measurements confirm that the atmospheric mixing ratio of CO2 has increased globally by about 100 ppm (36%) over the last 250 years".

36% total over the last 250 years is not equal to doubling in the last 100 due to man alone.

And if you think that thousands and thousands of people that deal with modeling and understanding *climate* (no, not some "weatherman" on XYZ station) don't look at history to see how climate changed in the past, including sea levels, then you are truly, truly fucked in the head.

Well, from your opening sentence you don't seem to be listening to the people dealing with the models, but let's take a look at the most quoted IPCC 'expert' opinion:

-From 1958 through the early 1990's, the IPCC reference exactly 1 dataset for CO2 concentrations(they neatly dismiss or ignore ALL other existing measured values for CO2 concentrations prior to the 1990).
-From 1990 onward 4 datasets from 4 sites have been used:Mauna Loa, Baring Head, Cape Grim (Tasmania) and the South Pole.
-From the IPCC's own report I linked above these sites "were chosen because air sampled at such locations shows little short-term variation caused by local sources and sinks of CO2 and provided the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented." *emphasis mine because it's important*

So the IPCC's opinion of historic CO2 is based on 'measured' values that start in 1990, and a single data source that goes back to '58 chosen BECAUSE it was "the first data from which the global increase of atmospheric CO2 was documented". Still feeling confident in the projections of historically unprecedented change that such a source predicts? That should be rhetorical, but since you also stated with confidence that mankind alone has doubled CO2 in the last 100 years I'm guessing maybe not.

A simple answer: between 1993 and 2000, the mean rate was 3.1mm/year, and it is increasing. These islands are like, 150 centimeters above sea level. Not much margin there.

For scientific questions like sea level rise, get a better source than wikipedia. Even the IPCC estimates the current measured rates of increase at around 1.7mm/year. By their best guess, even by the end of the century rates are only expected to be reaching 4mm per year. There estimates also contradict the article's 59cm increase, citing an expectation of 22-44cm above 1990 levels by 2090.

Another nice part of the IPCC report linked above is a graph they include showing sea level changes. It is pretty well flat before the 1900's and rises from 1900-2000, and from 200 through 2100 it begins rising much sharper. The graph is also nicely broken up by three lines that show the flat line before 1900 is "estimates of the past", and the slightly rising line is the "instrumental record" and the scarily rising line is "Projections of the future". If that doesn't draw a critical look from any rational mind I don't know what will.

It is also typical of climate change science, we have a very short term data set and base most projections on estimates of the past and future. Then scary graphs are shown were the estimate past is mostly static, the present is gradually changing from the past's static pattern, and the future is predicted to change exponentially. Just look at the graphs frequently used for temperature and CO2 concentrations as examples. It's BS and I can't believe how many scientifically minded people seem to tolerate it.

So that is blamed on global warming (no doubt man-made), causing the ponds to dry out. Neither of these are supplemented with facts, but is all speculative.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

At the risk of being modded down to oblivion, I am still curious to how this effects popular theories like global warming.

This field was so controversial, and scientists (and non-scientists) have gone over the work here with so many fine-tooth combs, that you can probably take the work that has survived refutation here as being very solidly established. That might not be the answer you wanted.

I hasten to add that while the sceptical scientists have unfortunately been shown to be wrong, their contributions, questioning the mainstream at every turn, have actually served to make climate modelling and paleo-climatology far far more rigourous than they would have been had everyone agreed from day one.

We already has people claiming that the science is wrong and they are generally mocked and ignored because their works are published in major journals. Well, this story seems to indicate that publishing those claims will give them a larger change of it being incorrect.

Which is why this article is such dangerous FUD, not merely in regard to climate science.

I know the IPCC looked at them, but they didn't validate any of the claims, they only looks at whether or not Humans were the cause (that was their charter and they acknowledged this in their reporting).

Nonsense! Their mandate is much general than that. The IPCC consists of 3 working groups, and the question of human causation formed only a fraction of the work undertaken by Working Group I (which reviews the physical scientific aspects of the climate system and climate change).

Really, whether you want to "tow the line" or not, before you make pronouncements about what the IPCC does or does not do or say, you owe it to yourself to inform yourself at least a little. It really doesn't take much time to read the Summary for Policy Makers, and only a little more to go the Technical Summary. You can find the various parts of the Report of Working Group I here. Of course reading the entire report is only for folks who don't have a life. :)

Now let's see who gets "modded down to oblivion." ;)

Again you're just using correlation to try to state that something is fact

Don't talk about what I'm doing. Go read the IPCC report. They looked at all of those other sources that you outlined and concluded that the CO2 output from those sources was not sufficient (read: not even close) to account for the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution.

Just because someone doesn't buy the whole Humanity is causing Global warming idea so far, doesn't mean they are being paid by the oil companies (this just a childish jab), are a republican (why does it always have to come down to party lines, I though Democrats were big on challenging the status quo) i'm an independent btw, or are just ignorant (it can happen but it isn't necessarily the case)

And where did I say any of those things?

Change for a better environment? I am all for it but lets not do it under the guise of Global Warming. Can't we just do it?

Not without either running out of (cheaply obtainable) fossil fuels or pricing them such that the environmental impact is reflected in the price. I would like to think that we'd have enough foresight to do the latter because the former will come with all sorts of nasty consequences -- chief among them being the often overlooked fact that we still need oil for other purposes (plastics and fertilizer both come to mind) and burning the last (cheaply obtainable) reserves in our cars seems like a big waste to me.

"Germans are telling us GW is taking a hiatus, which means most all of our previous models are wrong"

The German paper used the same models but with slightly different assumptions and they arrived at similar conclusions about the long term trend (post - 2015). It's an interseting paper but the Germans themselves would agree it's complete nonsense to say it "means most all of our previous models are wrong".

"I would love it if someone has a link to an article about an accurate computer model of the weather system, but I've never found one."

There is no single accurate model and there never will be. Accuracy is a function of mankinds future actions, the precision of observations and the resolution of the numerical analysis amoung other things. The models themselves are basically Finite Element Analysis models, thus the need for very powerfull number crunchers. They account for forcings and some of the major feedbacks but cannot account for feedbacks we know very little about ( thus the hand-wringing about "tipping points"). It's generally agreed that at best they can only predict large scale climate changes (ie: continental proportions).

The MET office in the UK is a good source of info on models and even has a computer program you can tinker with yourself (I will let you find that yourself). Thier list of climate center sites is also very useful.

The IPCC site has become close to useless since it's last redesign and it is difficult to find stuff on it. However the MET office provides an accesible way to read the reports. The IPCC does not conduct science, it reviews it. The RANGE of conclusions in the report are derived from thousands of simulations from various models and are distilled down to worst, best and most likely senarios.

Yes I know the MET is a single source, it just happens to be a good one and will point you in the right direction. If you are looking for a good climate mythbusting site then you might want to try realclimate.

"[TFA] makes me cringe."

Ditto!

Uh-huh, so all those climatologists who say otherwise are either a bunch of halfwits for failing to notice this stupendous oversight in, well, the laws of physics (and the fundamental physics of greenhouse gases and climate are really very simple), or a bunch of evil bastards because they KNOW it's all nonsense, but are part of a giant conspiracy to keep quiet about it so long as the grants keep rolling in. Which of these absurd possibilities do you propound?

Incidentally, if you'd like your economy to stick to a fossil-fuel based, intensive energy basis, have fun when oil hits $500/barrel...

"He may even be going so far as to dare to suggest that solar output dominates the ~5% of CO2 emissions that humans contribute to the atmosphere!"

->Do you have a citation for your 5% number?

Actually, I only had my memory of what the IPCC's TAR had cited from several years back. That's why I used th ~5% instead of stating it was exact, but I'll dig up the exact citation if it will make you happy.

Here's one from the hippies over that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration that says C02 increased by 5% in just the past 4 years. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ Now, I know it's not the same 5% you are talking about, but you tell me what 95% non-human factors are responsible for the increase.

I'm saying that 95% of the CLIMATE is controlled by non-human factors. And the link you give doesn't say a single thing about human contribution to CO2 concentrations, it only talks about the overall increase from human and non-human sources alike. Also it only talks about measurements from a particular site, which makes it more useful as a part of a larger sample set more than being definitive of it's own.

How about this from the nuts over at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/ice-bubbles-reveal-biggest-rise-in-co2-for-800000-years-414711.html

The link you gave is down for me. If you go to look at the IPCC's fourth assessment though:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf

You'll find pages 137-140 talks about human contributions to CO2 levels. It states that since 1750 CO2 concentrations have increased by 36%, but "using 1750
may slightly overestimate the RF, as the changes in the mixing
ratios of CO2, CH4 and N 2O after the end of this naturally
cooler period may not be solely attributable to anthropogenic
emissions." Which basically is saying that human contributions to CO2 concentrations since 1750 must be lower than 36%.

I haven't the time to dig through the entire report to get were my ~5% came from, but let's even settle for less than 36% for all fossil fuel emissions from humans ever. From the IPCC report you'll find that CO2 contributes approx. half the RF(radiative forcing) of the LLGHG(long-lived GHGasses). From basic climatology we all know that long lived GHG's are dominated by short lived GHG's like water vapor. So we are contributing less than a 36% increase to CO2, which contributes just under half the influence LLGHG's have on climate. LLGHG's in turn contribute less than half the changes of overall GHG's as things like water vapor are dominant. So even if we ignore solar output(which seems... foolish) we have human influence through CO2 emissions as 36%of50%of50% meaning a highly exaggerated estimate of 9% through out human history. If you use more realistic numbers though by adding things like solar output and the fact that LLGHG's aren't even near 50% of GHG forcings you can drop that 9% by another digit.

We aren't as significant as the fear mongers want you to think. And for methane increases, methane is only 17% of LLGHG's effect on climate, which is why it's not given as much attention by anyone, it doesn't affect the climate that much.

They use phrases like "it suggests", and "gives support to" rather than phrases like "statistically significant".

Actually, the Fourth Assessment Report produced in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a report with several hundred scientific contributors and co-authors, uses phrases like "very high confidence" and "very likely".

"There is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming" (p. 37)

"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations" (p. 39)

Except that's not actually the conservative position esposed by Buckley - that was just his quote for the founding of a magazine.

It's not "just" a quote, its his a pithy summary of his own thoughts. It's his summary of the conservative ideology.

And make no mistake, progressives are wrong 10 or 100 times as often as conservatives.

So give at least 10 examples of times when the modern (post-1955) conservative movement has been right on a major issue. Should be easy if you're right.

like the many failed utopias

If we're going back to the 1800s, I'm laying slavery at the feet of the conservatives, abolition on the shoulders of the progressives. Massive, massive win for the progressives.

As for utopianism, many of these 19th century utopian communities were extremely Christian, heavy on the Old Testament - hardly progressive. But the secular and progressive ones pioneered such "failed" ideas as equality for women and public schooling.

or the crazy 19th century health fads.

Citation needed that "crazy 19th century health fads" were somehow the exclusive domain of progressives. Kellogg, for example, was a Seventh-Day Adventist who favored segregation. (Of course, his ideas that a vegetarian diet and execise are good for you are hardly crazy. He was even right about probiotics; but his love of enemas, plus his extreme views about sex, let us file him in the "crazy" bin.)

*Of course* if you look at the ideas that actually *worked*, the progressivs are nearly always right - but that's trivially true, and not very interesting.

So according to you, progressives have lots of ideas, many of them bad, but nearly all of the ideas that worked came from them? So you admit that conservatives rarely have ideas that work?

Are the progressive wrong on the danger of global warming, or were they wrong when I was young on the danger of the coming ice age?

There was no scientific consensus of a ice age coming soon back in the 70s. It was a misinterpretation by popular media. I am unaware that were any progressive ties to this.

On the other hand, there is strong scientific consensus that "global warming" is real and is largely anthropogenic.

And the deliberate conflating of the two by anti-science conservatives shows, yet again, why few smart - or at least, smart and honest - people will align themselves with this movement.

It's an easy illusion to think of the way things are now as better in every way then the way things were, since we're comfortable with the familiar, and what about even better ways of living that we missed in our rush to pick something that sounded good at the time?

When were these "better ways of living" around? Back when we had segregation? When women were second-class citizens? When America was so dominated by ignorance that we had to argue over whether science should be taught in science classes?

Whoops, we're still in the total grip of that last one, and the partial grip of the second. And really, one look at the inner cities and the prisons show that the first hasn't gone away either. Still lots of progress needed.

Are there some good policy ideas in the past? Sure. I was recently arguing that we ought to return to the Eisenhower days' top marginal tax rate of 90%. But as a whole, that era of segregation, McCarthyism, and sexism belongs in the dustbin.

Except that "fighting global warming" isn't about cleaner air.

That depends on what you mean by "cleaner air" I suppose, but note that one way to get cleaner air is to burn less fossil fuel, which also reduces CO2. (Of course there are other ways to reduce pollution which leave CO2 emissions the same.)

It is about reducing "greenhouse gases", primarily CO2, which is an essential part of the atmosphere.

No one is talking about sucking all the CO2 out of the atmosphere so all the plants die. They're talking about reducing it back towards pre-industrial levels. (Note I say "towards"; it's not feasible to reduce it all the way down to 280 ppm this century.)

So, it does matter if "global warming" is true, because people like Al Gore are asking us to cripple our economies to reduce CO2 emissions,

Reducing CO2 emissions won't "cripple the economy". That's just the conservative version of "global warming alarmism".

I'd recommend reading William Nordhaus's new book, "A Question of Balance". Nordhaus is an economist at Yale and one of the leading experts on climate economics. A free draft manuscript is here. His recommendations are more conservative than the Stern Report someone else cited. But he still concludes that from a cost-benefit perspective, we should be implementing substantially more CO2 reductions than we currently are. That's also the conclusion of pretty much every other climate economist who works on the problem, although they disagree to various extents about the exact reductions needed and the best way to get there. Note that economists are not generally in favor of crippling the economy.

Which is a question that I rarely seen discussed. If Global Warming is true, is it really a problem?

You can start by reading the Nordhaus book I cited, and also the IPCC Working Group 2 report. (Also the Working Group 3 report for what should be done about it.)

I ... believe in global warming, and condemn all censorship that finds the opposite

While I suppose you could say that I too 'believe' in global warming, it distresses me that the pervasive attitude is that one can either believe or not believe in it. Stating belief in global warming is like stating belief in a round earth, it doesn't really matter that you believe it or not.

At this point it is no longer a subject of debate, the earth is warming. There is almost not debate as to whether or not we contribute to the problem or if it's natural. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) states that is is very likely (very likely is defined by the IPCC as 90% probable) that the causes are anthropogenic.

Read more on the IPCC website.

"There is nothing wrong with being a skeptic. I am skeptical as well that there is proof of man made global warming."

Skepticisim is at the core of the scientific method, it is a skill that is easily taught, often abused, and never fully mastered. I have been proud to label myself as such since "discovering" James Randi and Carl Sagan in the seventies. Sagan went on to write what I would consider a modern "bible" on the virtues of scepticisim - Demon Haunted World. However science provides evidence for concepts in the form of repeatable demonstrations, never proof.

"Australia uses coal because Australia has a lot of coal."

Yep and it's mostly the dirty brown stuff, it's all over the place - we even sent coals to Newcastle during the Thatcher years. Consequently there is a very powerfull coal lobby in Australia.

"I will simply state that I fail to understand is how standing stubbornly by the US has anything to do with your choice in energy?"

Our powerfull coal lobbyists are barely distinguishable from your powerfull coal lobbyists, so much so that at the most influential levels they are often the same people. They have very successfully moved the public argument to oil and rising oceans when the major threat is to food and it's coming first and foremost from coal. Blind support for the US stance on Kyoto and it's successor was a large part of John Howard's downfall in the last election, his blind support for TWOT was an even larger part of the battering his party took at the polls. From what I saw of UK politics I belive at least some of Tony Blair's unpopularity at home was also due to his emabrassingly obvious body language when he was kissing Bush's arse in public. These three leaders (two right-wingers and a lefty) dragged the world into Iraq and had no choice but to stick together on TWOT, simarly Howard got sticky with George on GW for other reasons.

During the last decade in particular, both the US and Australian government sponsered scientific institutions such as NOAA and CSIRO have contributed an enourmous wealth of knowledge on the subject despite political interference. At the same time Howard and Bush were calling for "more research" (in perfect mass media, trans-pacific synconisity) they were eliminating all refrences to "our home planet" in NASA's mission statement and gutting the budgets that had, for decades, been providing the research they were calling for.

"The problem is that unless China and India get on board and NO I am not willing to pay them off it really will make little difference."

True, however the UN climate summit at Bali demonstrated the only country that is still not on board is the US. The deal that US finally agreed to discuss after being deserted by Australia, shamed by PNG and boo'ed by the rest of the planet is known as the Brazilian proposal (the top link is to Melbourne Uni, a highly respected university in my home town).

As far as the fairness of obligations goes the general idea is a cap and trade system that attempts to allocate the same amount of GHG on a per-captia basis to each person on Earth between (IIRC) 1960-2060 this creates different emmision curves for different nations but the curves are planned to merge together ~2030. Having said that I am not a fan of everything in the proposal (in particular offsets based on land use), I also recognise that no treaty will please everyone or be immune from creative accounting.

"At the same time I am all for cutting CO2 just because I don't think that it can hurt and it may hel

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Read Scientific Assessment Report 4, and follow the trail of references within that document.

When you've read and digested, come back and explain (with references to peer-reviewed scientific research) why Tyndall's radiative forcing experiments of 1859 and all the climate science that has followed has been proven invalid.

You must read different scientific papers from me.

Aren't there valid arguments that say that this is just a cyclic phenomenon linked to solar activity?

No. Increased solar output appear to only account for a small portion of the increase in temperature. Of course some of the 10,000s of scientists involved may by liberal, so we can just ignore them...

Beside hopelessly confusing weather and climate, you have also been mislead about the UN. The IPCC reports are here, you can talk directly to some of the scientists who contributed to the report here. An attribution graph showing the contributions of man to both warming (GHG) and cooling (mainly sulphates) can be found in the IPCC's 2007 SPM or you could have a look at this one.

Now please realise that the IPCC does not come up with new science, it is a UN body that gathers scientists from every national science body on the planet and reviews published scientific papers. They do not have ONE report they have ~20yrs worth of reports.

Assuming you are not just a rabid anti-science troll can you please post some evidence for your claims such as...

ALL greenhouse gas "global warming" theories require the upper atmosphere to warm proportionally to the surface temperature....the greenhouse warming models allow for local, temporary variations, but NOT for a record cold hemisphere...the UN has retracted their famous, hysterical report about greenhouse warming...Some of the very scientists who were quoted in that IPCC report tried to get their names removed

Note: I work on the same basis as the IPCC, ie: I only accept evidence that is backed by peer-reviewed publications.

To question (A), start here, particularly chapter 9. To question (B), start here.

"I'll go with waiting for science to get all the facts right and remove political/personal agendas."

Assuming you are serious, what is your definition for "facts" and how will you know when you have ALL of them?

I mean there are 11,000+ google scholar hits for papers using or citing the SEAWIFS data set. I don't even see the paper referenced in either link let alone a credible understanding of the biosphere. This is not to say the paper is wrong, it's just that the spin in the article is making me dizzy and I want to vomit.

As you can see from all the amount of research using the SEAWIFS data set there is no need for you to wait. And that's just one data set, our collective knowledge of climate (and the biosphere in general) has exploded since the 80's and the only political/personal agendas you need remove are the ones that are stopping you from being a true skeptic and practicing the scientific method.

Unfortunately this means getting a basic grasp of the existing body of knowledge and evidence, if that's too much then you may find reputable blogs worth a try, especially for mythbusting.

BTW: Whoever modded you insightfull also does not understand the scientific method. Science will never "get all the facts", waiting for that oxymoronic event to occur implies either ignorance or some sort of political/personal agenda.

1. Yes

2. I think AGW is high on the list of several urgent global problems and I am also aware of the solar flux thing - so I put this one down as anecdotal.

3. Mass media maybe, they seem to need a target to point their finger at in just about everything. Scientists however have done no such thing - please look at this widely accepted graph that is in line with, and easier to understand than, the IPCC findings most recently described in the 2007 IPCC SPM.

BTW: IANAC and I agree the OP was humourous.

Yeah, climate scientists are just going to ignore the #1 factor that controls natural climate change when they are making their climate models. :p

The IPCC has a nice graph that shows the magnitude of various forcings on climate change. The chapter that has this is right here (pdf). Ultimately, the concensus amoung scientists are that natural solar forcing is minor compared to man-made forcings. That is not to say there isn't an effect, and certainly the observations of climate change on Jupiter and Mars is evidence of this.

Wow... so much crap and bad faith in this small paragraph, I must say I'm impressed!

I don't exactly care about diminished barley harvest... but if you want peer-reviewed articles about global warming, you'll find hundreds of them there:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/

Read some and come back later if you still want to talk about "mythical consensus" and no "peer-reviewed articles about global warming".

"Yes, we do. Don't project your own ignorance onto others."

"Then please, give me facts that can prove that we are 100% responsible for climate change..."

This makes it extremely difficult to credit the statement by TFGeditor (737839) that "I have done a lot of research".

TFG, I'm kinda suspecting you're trolling, but just in case...

Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. J. Hansen, et. al., 1981.
Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. Charney, J.G., et al., 1979.
A Terminal Mesozoic "Greenhouse": Lessons from the Past, Dewey M. McLean, 1978.
Greenhouse effects due to man-made perturbations of trace gases. Wang, W. C., et al., 1976.
The effects of doubling the CO2 concentration on the climate of a general circulation model, Manabe, S., and R.T. Wetherald, 1975.
Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?, Wallace S. Broecker, 1975.
The concentration and isotopic abundances of carbon dioxide in rural and marine air, Keeling, C.D., 1961
Carbon dioxide exchange between atmosphere and ocean and the question of an increase of atmospheric CO2 during the past decades. Revelle, R., and H.E. Suess, 1957.

Or, going back a little further:

Callendar, G.S., 1938: The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 64, 223-237.

Arrhenius, S., 1896: On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature on the ground, Philos. Mag., 41, 237-276.

The current IPCC report has a review of historical climate research, and is available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf.

"If you are over 30 and no breakthroughs has surfaced so far then likely they never will."

I have heard that argument before, and indeed it does seem that revolutionary ideas usually come at an early age, still there are plenty of exceptions such as Newton who wrote the principa at ~40.

I really don't think money aimed at 'picking winners' will have any effect on the rate of revolutionary ideas, they are 'once in a lifetime' bursts of inspiration. That's not to say that spending a bit of cash to encourage 'out of the box' thinking is a complete waste, but the money could also be spent helping the older 'second rate' scientists investigate the intersesting ideas that already pop up from unpredictable and diverse sources.

IIRC Maxwell's equations were largely ignored for ~80yrs, so if the aim is to distinguish revolutionary ideas from trivia and crackpots then spend the bulk of the money collecting and collating data and give it away to everyone.

I suspect you can read the IPCC report as well as I.

Chapter 16 of the 2nd part of the report (the "effects" part) is "Small Islands".

p. 696 has a nice picture with a box around various areas of the world which has endangered islands, it turns out I lied in saying they were all in the Pacific.

Here's a list of some of them:

In the Indian Ocean, reconstructed sea levels based on tide gauge data and TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter records for the 1950 to 2001 period give rates of relative sea-level rise of 1.5, 1.3 and 1.5 mm/yr (with error estimates of about 0.5 mm/yr) at Port Louis, Rodrigues, and Cocos Islands, respectively (Church et al., 2006). In the equatorial band, both the Male and Gan sea- level sites in the Maldives show trends of about 4 mm/yr (Khan et al., 2002), with the range from three tidal stations over the 1990s being from 3.2 to 6.5 mm/yr (Woodworth et al., 2002). Church et al. (2006) note that the Maldives has short records and that there is high variability between sites, and their 52-year reconstruction suggests a common rate of rise of 1.0 to 1.2 mm/yr.

But it sounds like sea level is actually the least of the problem here, the main problem is the associated effects:

• increased natural hazards, ("very high confidence")
• compromised water resources, ("very high confidence")
• negative impact on fisheries ("high confidence")
• invasive species ("high confidence")
• negative impact on commercial agriculture ("high confidence")
• negative direct and indirect impacts on tourism ("high confidence")
• negative impact on human health ("medium confidence")

"very high confidence" and the like actually cooresponds to numerical numbers

Don't get your knickers in a knot. The basic problem here is you do not understand what science is and therfore have no point of reference to determine quality. Your demand for proof demonstrates your ignorance on the subject (note: 'ignorance' is not an insult here, it simply means you don't know something). I recommend you read Carl Sagan's "Demon haunted world" as a starting point for understanding the concept of scientific skepticisim.

If you are really interested in climatology talk to some climatologists. If nothing else they may help aleviate your ignorance of how and why science works.

And at least have a go at reading the IPCC reports before you demand evidence from me that is widely available (in particular try to understand how figure 2 in the 2007 SPM was derived).

"lastly i suggest you burn your collection of Al Gore and Micheal Moore video's and go out there in such of real facts."

You know, to the rest of the fucking planet AG is simply presenting the IPCC reports to a laymen audience. His nobel prize was for communicating the "real facts" as understood by science at the time. I would have thought that such geek like behaviour in a politician would be considered a GoodThingTM, but I'm probably wasting my breath since you have already shot the messenger for party political reasons.

Your problem is you belive easy answers are enough to support the status-quo, except under your logic OBL has done nothing wrong because all he did was provide a "stick".

Talk to some IPCC contributors, or at least start your mythbusting here. Not convinced...look in the appendix of the IPCC reports and check out the reseach by all the contributors, that by design represent the considered scientific opinion of most of the national scientific bodies on the planet.

Sure we have spent billions in the last decade confirming the science but why does the US still find itself isolated at Bali? We now know (in gigatons/yr roughly what has to be done by when), the first time I heard the target of 450ppm was from Lord Oxbourough when he was chairman of Shell. The negotiators have squezeed enougn for "national intrest" already, time to face reality and accept the need for targets that the rest of the world have already basically agreed on.

Tell you what: I'll show you lists of the authors and reviewers of the latest IPCC assessments, and you show me a list of the "several prominent meterologists" who disagree with them. My money is on the group that just won a Nobel Prize.

Here are the IPCC's working groups: The Physical Science Basis contributors and reviewers (see Annex II in that file); Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability contributors and reviewers; Mitigation of Climate Change contributors and reviewers. IPCC press information claims 800 contributing authors, 450 lead authors, and 2,500 scientific expert reviewers.

For one, junkscience.com is run by a non-scientist who used to do it-isn't-so-bad-for-you PR for tobacco companies. Many of the basic facts and theories used are accurate, but the conclusions drawn are misleading unless you've just had an actual class in the stuff and can see just what he's scientifically leaving out.

As to the prize? Carnivals offer "prizes" too. I'm sure you win them all the time.

A "petition" which turns out to be a list of names, without and indication of where these people got their degrees, where they are currently working, and if they have any actual peer-reviewed (ie other scientists) papers published.

There isn't any indication of how to get on this list, or if you get paid money to allow your name to be used, but there is an interesting disclaimer at the bottom:

Note: The Petition Project has no funding from energy industries or other parties with special financial interests in the "global warming" debate. Funding for the project comes entirely from private non-tax deductible donations by interested individuals.

But oh, even better!

Qualification to be a signatory requires that the individual have a university degree in physical science, either BS, MS, or PhD. Those with MS or PhD degrees are so designated. Those with BS degrees are undesignated or sometimes designated as MD if appropriate.

Here you go:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

"Are you actually claiming that the IPCC reports qualify as peer reviewed studies?"

1. The IPCC takes it's input from PR-papers where the results have also been reproduced by other PR papers. A six moth old paper with no independent reproduction will not cut it.
2. EVERY national science body on the planet MUST agree on the contents of the reports. From the US this includes but is not limited to NAS, NASA and NOAA.
3. The people who decide the content are scientists, period. If not then please name a single political contributor or a single instance of political interference (there have been many attempts but I'm looking for a successful one).

In short the peer-review process for the IPCC reports would have to qualify as the strictest and most comprehensive review ever mounted by the scientific community. Much like the 150yr argument over evolution, the IPCC is a text book case of how the "republic of science" should work.

Your disdain and ignorance of this approach is reminiscent of the opinion pages of the WSJ that are themselves driven by purely political motives when it comes to AGW.

"Show me ANYTHING consistent with the scientific method that would lead you to believe that an increase of CO2 from 280ppmv to 380ppmv is capable of causing a measurable increase in average atmospheric temperature."

Refer to the sources for the attribution diagram (figure 2) in the 2007 IPCC SPM, they are too numerous to list here.

I find it amusing that some people (particularly in the US) think that AGW is some kind of politcal conspiracy to usher in world government. Just for a second think about who would benifit from corrupting the science then follow the money behind the people promoting this political conspiracy theory and you will find a bunch of anti-science lobbyists who's sole interest is protecting their clients bottom line.

And any large sea-level rise would lead to tremendous losses in the global economy (see this picture, featured on Slashdot recently. You recognize the continents? why is it that you recognize the continents on this picture? think about that.), which could also lead to destabilization and war.